i'm a fairly confident person....but quite often, when i'm complimented, it goes to my head and i'm not really sure how to not let it.

E.g I get called good looking a fair bit, and then if i look in the mirror shortly after ill like smile at myself and it'll make me feel better than everyone else..even though i'm obviously not and shouldn't even compare myself to other people lol.

When im complimented by a girl, they're normally not that hot (i dont think hot girls call guys hot but less hot girls do it more?) and so that kind of raises me above them and i normally neg like crazy because it's fun and congruent with me then...

Anyone know what i'm going on about?

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-Neil

Yah. It's because the game works both ways dude. If she just straight up gives you a compliment or shows a lot of interest, generally you see her as less attractive because you haven't earned their compliment just like if you do that to them they will see you as less attractive and probably leave you unless they have low self esteem and low confidence. I am not sure why you want to be less confident though. I would say stop negging someone who gives you a compliment though, it's a pretty cruel thing to do and they are probably not gonna want to compliment you afterwards + your giving them a really bad experience, especially when you don't give in to them. Just say thank you and move on if you are not attracted to them. Out of curiosity, do they stick around and keep talking to you after you neg them?

you are going wrong. They are complimenting you (ioi) and you are negging them (iod) that shows bad social skills. I think your success rate wont be that gud with these girls

i think i need to elaborate...
Neg is probably the wrong word, sorry, more like tease. they know im joking.

I know i'm not being like mean to them. Also, a couple of them like me, so i partly do it to show them i'm not romantically interested.

I'm taking about girls im with at school, who i hang around with. They keep talking to me afterwards and don't show signs of vague hurt or whatever. I was mainly asking how i'd channel the compliment into my confidence instead of it turning into arrogance if that makes sense.

Also, it's not like compliment -> neg directly, there's chat in between in which i probably vaguely ioi and other stuff i dont think about.

They carry on the compliments whatever i do...theyre not girls i wanna get with i was just talking about general confidence

_________________
-Neil

A confident person would never have to put himself above someone else. You my friend are not confident. You are arrogant and you will fuck girls with low self-esteem until you realize that.

_________________
Walk Hard

okay mate so this is what i'm saying- how to change??

edit: yeah mate really, don't say stuff like that without some advice man.

_________________
-Neil

Arrogance usually comes from a hidden sense of insecurity. A truly confident, down to earth person will never let an ego get to his head

_________________
Just trying to meet a 10.

Honestly Ive been there and still trying to change. Ive gone overboard and been thought of as fake and arrogant by trying to change to confident from shy

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Just trying to meet a 10.

so how do i go about finding my insecurities then, and then how to deal with them once i've found them? i'm looking to change if i'm going wrong people, that's why im here- can anyone advise me?

_________________
-Neil

Create conversations with yourself. I know this sounds weird but asking yourself a question like "what am I insecure about?", "what lead to these insecurities?" can help you uncover subconscious insecurities. You can be your own therapist. Then once you have uncovered them, realize that they are in the past and let go of them, find a way to view them as trivial, because thats what the majority of them are, unless it is a fear of heights, noises, or something that is dangerous in reality, cause those can and will save your life. Probably not what your dealing with. Once you tear down your walls build it back up with positive thoughts and realizations. For me one of my realizations was that I couldn't approach strangers because my mom told me never to trust strangers, and filled my head up with stories about how they would kidnap me or try to rape me or something. Good lesson for a little kid. As an adult it is completely useless, I now realize it can move on from it, but if I never asked myself "Why can I not approach strangers but can approach people I know perfectly normally?" I would have never realized this and would still be carrying this unnecessary fear of strangers that would be extremely limiting my approaches, and ruin my approach mentality. There is a reason you let compliments go to your head and become arrogant, now is the time to ask yourself for the answers and begin changing your belief system. The only one who can answer the question is you.

For me I learned how to become confident once I stopped judging people and putting others down. My ego was protecting me from people that didn't like me so I judged them. In reality I was weak. I gained my confidence because I stopped acting on my negative thoughts.

_________________
Walk Hard

thank all of you so much man. time to sort this out

i'm not sure about it because i didn't start thinking about things this deeply before (what im about to tell you) happened but i reckon this miight be some sort of an insecurity.

Basically, i had the best childhood ever, a lot of parents separate during the upbringing of their children and i am so thankful that that didn't happen to me.

From the age of about 11-15, i had two main amazing groups of friends: my friends from church and my school friends. I lived in South London and i was really happy. It was a rather large group of church friends, and one lot of them i would see on Sundays, and one lot had other plans on sunday mornings and there was a group of maybe 5 of us that used to go round to someones house and have chinese and stuff. I remember being so happy during those times.

Now, i'm 16, and about 2 months ago i moved to a place about 2 hours west of London. 2 hours by train and by car. 20 quid each time i wanna go and see them, and i don't have a job..

We moved because my dad was the pastor of this church i went to, and there was a thing involving our youth pastor who was a huge role model for me and who 'upset' my sister, in some way, serious enough that my dad had to suspend him from his job...


And so maybe that it is, my insecurity. But what is my actual insecurity? being exposed to the fact that 5 years worth of friendships can just be broken down like that, thus making me scared of making new friends or something? I don't *feel* like this is it, i'm in roughly my 5th week of term at my new sixth form and i WANT to keep making friends. I don't cry about it, and i know it's good to cry about things, so i have tried to, but i never seem to be able to do it, and this makes me worried that i don't care enough about what's happened. It just feels like that was then, and this is now. Although i was happier before, better friends and no 'social strain' on myself, being the best i can be for people to make the best friends i can, and i suppose so that people will view me highly.

I suppose i need to learn that this is all for myself. I care about what people think of me, i should care more what i think of myself.
I suppose i'm also in the way of thinking that some people are better than other people. I know this is wrong but i can't win the battle in my head- i just think of someone who is the 'lowest' socially- i.e. they don't go out, they are addicted to online games like world of warcraft, then i compare that person to a major PUA, with all the confidence in the world
My mind just says to me- this persons life is crap, and this persons life is amazing. therefore, this person is lower than this person.
Any suggestions on how to overcome this?

I dunno but i might be insecure about people liking me aswell, like in college isn't social proof everything so i worry a bit about how i, as the new guy, am seen

Can anyone shed some more light maybe?

_________________
-Neil

Well at 16 it's understandable to think that a master PUA has all the confidence in the world. But in reality becoming a PUA doesn't give anyone true confidence. True confidence is achieved only through a deep respect and belief in yourself.

Don't worry so much about not caring. You might be taking things in stride, moving away from your friends can be sad but it can also bring about opportunity you didn't have before so try to stay positive and make the best out of your situation. Remember thoughts create reality. So if you think you will never find a good group of friends then you will make it happen because you believe that. It's amazing what you can do if you truly believe in something. So stay positive, make a plan to have an even better group of friends, and your life will improve.

Be careful about performing the dark arts in order to feel a sense of confidence. It isn't that women sleep with you that makes a man confident. It's that you are confident either way. And always use protection no matter how horny you are. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you deal with it.

_________________
Walk Hard

@neiltaylorsguitar

hey mate,
I hope you are all good! I have not been a member here too long, but I must say your post struck a cord with me. I'm a similar age , live in the south-west of London, (heck I even do the same thing with negging girls!) and I was in a really similar place in terms of my inner confidence/ arrogance.

I'll give you a quick run down on my own arrogance, as I think judging by your posts, you are similar, and then at the bottom are ways of escaping this outlook.

Firstly, like you I was/am very judgmental of people; like you I would look at someone and decide, for lack of a better phrase, how well they were doing "at life". This happened particularly academically, although it also developed in sport and socially too - all areas that I was "strong" in.

You say "I care what people think of me, i should care more what i think of myself" and this is exactly where I was. I was not deluded, I was not overconfident - I was in fact so insecure that my opinion of myself was completely based on other peoples' views on me, which consequently lead to me having a pretty accurate view of myself. i.e my arrogance wasn't actually some deluded pride that my abilities at something were better than someone else's.

In fact, my arrogance came from how I viewed other people: I judged them like you, I decided whether I was better than someone because of a particular facet of them that I was in fact better at them at. I hope this makes sense; what I am saying is that my arrogance came from placing too much significance on an attribute or skill or something, and using this to make me "feel superior" as the dictionary might put it.

However what you must remember is that they could be judging you too! There is no universally correct scale for judging people, and I hope you can recognize that although the world of warcraft addict may not be the equal of the major pua in social terms (still subjective), the world of warcraft guy could just as easily dismiss the major pua as some vain shallow guy, wrapped up in seeking his own self value and justifying his own self worth in his sexual conquests, who furthermore might be weaker academically, musically, or maybe just less happy with life than world of warcraft guy. What I am getting at is that one cannot have the mindset of judging whether people are "better" than other people, because it is completely subjective - no one is right, and if you are someone who thinks like that then you are simply being arrogant.

Everyone is unique and everyone operates by their own set of beliefs and values in life: there is something special and unique about everyone. No one is "better" than anyone overall, merely different.

My suggestions for you would be two-fold (they are pretty much what I am working at):

1) Identify your insecurities that have caused your arrogance
For example, I found that my insecurity was that I feared not being unique and not standing out (perhaps it is the same for you as you say you care of what others think of you): this embellished itself in various aspects of my life, and I think understanding oneself and why you are the person you are is a good first step to improving.

2) Instead of judging/contrasting people, try and identify what makes that person unique/special
If you can do this, and I know I have found it hard at times, but if you can implement this then I have found that it really has changed the whole landscape of life around me: my "deep respect and belief in myself", as magnum45 put it, is growing, and it has helped me escape the false state which I once did consider confident, but was in fact arrogance.

Anyway I hope this helped you out mate, heck maybe you were nothing like me at all or not as bad or anything, but even if it didn't I must say I think I learned something about myself in writing this which is kinda cheating as this was meant to be about helping you but hey haha

-Remedi

I'll try to answer....lol
Well I believe You shouldn't care about You look soo badly, still be well-groomed, elegant and dress nicely.
Remember that looks are not so important to Women, they prefer Your personality, passions that you have and so on...
Its interesting and ironic that most HB have no passions in there life's whatsoever, so it's easy to interest them for instance in mind reading or lie games.
... And I don't think less attractive girls are more likely to complement a guy.
Tom